The cold water is water-like, but unlike the water you’ve encountered before. In the cold hole, the frigid water gives a sense of place rather than substance. But inside the ice-cold hole, there is no TV at all, and no watcher-just a wide-open black space pulled tight and close, a jolt in the darkness, like electricity or a car crash, and the galloping, like a wild herd of something that you would no longer call your heart. On another, you yourself are the TV set, coursing with energy and color, seeing what is happening inside you only by the hues and shadows cast on the wall. How can I explain that the feeling of being in the plunge is no feeling at all? I sometimes describe the feeling of having feelings in this way: On one day, you’re like a person watching TV, sitting at a comfortable distance and tracking the images unfolding onscreen, stories that tumble into one another or are severed with sharp, nonsensical breaks in narrative. Where does power lie: with the artist, the participant, or the viewers? In a space of both intense external scrutiny and sharp awareness of one’s own body, where does performance end and reality begin?- Alexandra Foradas, Associate Curator, MASS MoCAĢ. They comment on the participant’s actions, laughing, clapping, and occasionally voicing threats to push them into the hole. However, this decision is not made privately but publicly, within a frame dictated by the artist, as eager viewers observe from the safety and anonymity of the darkened room. Henri Cartier-Bresson described this as “the decisive moment.” In A Cold Hole, the decisive moment rests with the subject, who knows why and when they will take the plunge. In photography, the click of the shutter has historically defined the moment of the artwork’s creation, when the photographer decides which subjects to include within the frame. In these rituals, participation is often mandated by social pressure or religious tradition: Individual action is subsumed into a ceremonial performance that reinforces systemic power relations. Ritual cold-water immersion is often employed as a “quick fix,” an immediate reset, a symbolic rebirth and purification, shocking the participant out of their capacity for thought. In this installation, Simon activates the ancient rite of cold-water immersion, which recurs in contexts from Russian Orthodox Epiphany celebrations to Shinto Kanchu Misogi baths to Apache leader Geronimo’s use of cold water to train boys for manhood and battle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |